Have you ever asked someone where they wanted to go for lunch, and they answer with, “I don’t know; anywhere’s fine.”
Isn’t that an extremely frustrating answer? And yet, we do it to ourselves too.
My husband and I have gone back and forth on selling our house and buying a new one for the past three years. It’s exhausting.
Why do we do this to ourselves, and to other people? Why is it so hard to commit to one course of action?
I’ve seen this play out in real estate teams too. For example, perhaps everyone on the team thinks it’s a good idea to start a geographic farm, so they pick a neighborhood and begins the farming process. They send out a postcard, and someone knocks on doors. The next month, another postcard goes out, but no one knocks on doors because it’s too hot out. Next thing you know, there’s no more farming effort.
You might think that lack of motivation or lack of focus is the reason we fizzle out on things like the farming example.
The true cause though, is lack of clarity.
It’s crucial to the success of any business, any plan, heck, any life, to get clarity on the why and how of everything.
Let’s start with the why. Get very clear on why you do anything.
If you think your team needs to start doing client events, why is that? What’s the outcome you want to achieve? I’m sure you could come up with a list of reasons why, but what’s the most important reason? What’s the one reason you can come back to when it feels like client events are a pain in the neck and you aren’t sure you want to keep doing them?
In this example, the answer is relationships. If you expect people to refer business to your team, you have to stay in relationship with them. Calling every three months to ask if they know anyone who wants to buy, sell, or invest in real estate is not a relationship.
Why do you want to switch CRMs? Why do you want to attend the next real estate conference? Why do want to have a conversation with your team about communication? Clarity is crucial.
Next is how. Get very clear on how you’ll do something.
I’ve read several books on setting big goals and the authors of these books encourage you to not worry about the how when you’re setting the goal because that limits your thinking. If you’d like to set a goal of earning $100,000 a year as an executive assistant on your real estate team, and you begin to doubt that’s even possible because you don’t see how, then you’re less likely to commit to taking the actions that would get you there.
That’s why it’s important to get clear on why you want a $100,000 per year salary in the first place. What will that do for you? What will that do for your real estate team? Then, go to work on the how.
There’s usually more than one way to get what you want. Make a list of every way you can think of to achieve your goal and set to work on the one that will get you there the fastest. If you start down that path and you encounter road blocks, then you can figure out a way through, or you can choose a different path.
The key to how you’ll get something done is to get clear on exactly what needs to be done and then to make a commitment to doing it. It could be that you’re going to get your real estate license and start referring business to the team. What’s the first thing you need to do? Well, you’d better make sure your mega is willing to pay you a referral fee. Are you committed to having that conversation with him or her?
Figuring out how to reach your goal is as simple as getting clarity on the most important step to take first, and then taking that step. You don’t necessarily need to have all the steps written out. You just need a very clear first step. And then get clear on the next step, execute it, and get clear on the next step. Repeat until you reach your goal.
To wrap up, let me leave you with this. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed with things and to indulge in confusion and frustration. That’s why it’s important to always be clear on what the highest priority is and then to take focused action on that one thing. You may have a list of things that absolutely have to get done today, but if you get so anxious thinking of everything that has to get done that you curl up in a ball under your desk, then absolutely nothing will get done.
So what’s it going to be? Are you going to seek clarity and take back your power to achieve great things? Or are you going to indulge in confusion and get lackluster results?
